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So we left La Paz with high hopes of a bus we could relax and possibly get some sleep on, we had booked the same day we were travelling, so with the public holiday and the fact that some operators have 2 hour lunch breaks it took us some time to actually get a ticket for us both, the next time we want a bus we will get one through the actual bus station. Our bus left on time- thankfully as it's a 10hour trip - we got stuck in the back seat that didn't recline and then after an hour they put some indigenous Bolivians that they picked up off the street next to us, they also bought all their gear with them onto the bus instead of storing it below like everyone else - it would be an understatement to say that it was cramped. Oh and did I mention that they were malodorous - smelling like 2-3 weeks without a shower.
So it started of not such a pleasant ride and then the bus just stopped for a while no real reason explained to anyone, it just stopped, one of the girls in front of us decided to investigate and found the driver sleeping. After about 1/2 an hour of sitting the bus tried to start again then stopped after about 10mins of banging it started and we were on our way. This is not the end of our pleasant bus journey, as at about 1am we left any form of paved surface for a gravel road that was so bumpy that we were thrown from our seats many a time, and then one of the stinky ladies tried to pick pocket Karl... would of worked if he was asleep but instead Karl removed her hand using his, she didn't make a sound and moved her hand back into her jacket and that was the end of that.
We arrived at Uyuni at around 5am not a single soul on the bus was told about our arrival and after 1/2 an hour some people went to investigate finding that we had been locked inside the bus! Doors opened at 7am we collected all our belongings some that had been shaken from us during the ride and got off the hell bus, collected our bags and got well away from that traumatic experience.
At our hostel we were able to leave our bags - as check in wasn't until midday. We had breakfast in the hostel however meet some other people wanting to do the 3 day salt flat tour as well and got talking with them and decided to do our research together, we went from the most expensive through to some cheap and nasty operators with old and unkempt cars, we found one that we liked and booked through them, one of our group wanted to check out one more operator that didn't open until 3pm so she didn't end up joining us. The rest of our day was spent sleeping and reading trying to catch up on our terror night in the bus.
Tour Day 1
We turned up only to find that another 2 were being added to the car, careful of our own safety (people have died on the salt flat tours - predominantly due to drunk drivers) we didn't want to get in an overloaded car, after 1/2 an hour of arguing we found out that the back seat had 3 full three point seat belts not 2. We paid, put our bags on the car and we were on our way. Unlike the tour operator (known by all the workers as the "witch"- a lot of truth in that), our driver was excellent, his name is Figo and he joined in when he could to our dancing and terribly out of tune singing and general tom foolery. Our first visit on our tour was to the Train Cemetery which has a lot of different old steam trains, carridges, tanks etc. Either these were retired when diesel trains came along or from catastrophic failure. Seems like something that Bruce (Jane's dad) would really like to see!
Our next visit took us to a town on the edge of the salt flat, where salt is processed for distribution to the rest of Bolivia, we took a quick tour of a 2 roomed processing plant. The salt comes through partially dried from the salt flat (dug into pyramids by hand to partially dry) where the water table is quite high, then gets heated to evaporate any remaining water over a log fire then cooled in a pile for 4 hours. Then they use a lawnmower engine fashioned into small crusher where they add iodine and salt together and then bag the byproduct from the crusher. They bag the resulting salt by hand, 8 adults can bag 5000kgs per day! They bag them in 1kg sachets and then group them into a 50kg bag. They sell the 50kg bags for 15bolivianos - the equivalent of about 2 Australian Dollars. They do this in family based cooperatives - the men (generally) on the salt flats digging and scratching up the salt, and processing it. While the women make handicrafts with some of the left over salt and help with the bagging.
Then we hit the salt flat! The Salar de Uyuni! What a sight!! It is an prehistoric salt lake that once covered almost all of southwest Bolivia has dried up to be a 12,106 sq km Salt Flat. Our last official stop and lunch break was an island in the middle of the salt flat, this was spectacular - with active and inactive volcanos surrounding the salt flat hundreds of kilometers away, the island has hundreds of cactus all over it creating spectacular views! The cactus grow about a centimeter every year, the bins are made from dead cactus and some of the living cacti were over 12m tall that's about 1200 years old. The salt flat used to be connected to the sea hundreds of thousands of years and there is evidence of this by remains of coral all over the island, and around Uynui as well. The sea was closed in by volcanic and tectonic plate activity however according to Figo our driver the remaining salt lake didn't dry up until about 1500 A.D.
The Salt flat is vast and in the wet season there is enough water to dissolve some of the salt and move it around in the dry season the water evaporates again and causes the salt to form in large hexagonal slabs while it is drying. It's white and 'icy' looking - reminds Jane of the gritty icy snow like stuff in snow-field car parks. We were lucky enough to be there in the dry season so there was just an expanse of white and the beautiful blue sky, with volcanoes off in the distance. We made an unofficial stop for photos far away from any vehicle tracks which trace all across the salt flats in many a direction. Photos on the salt flat make awesome use of perspective! We have one with all 8 of us popping out of a shoe! Our first hostel we arrived at was made of Salt bricks joined together with a salt and cement mix, it was surprisingly warm inside which was fantastic. The floors of the hostel were covered in salt too - there were two hotels on the salt flat, but they're illegal now, so only used as museum/restaurants. (illegal due to pollution of the salt flat).
Tour Day 2
We were now off the Salt flat and our tour took us closer to the border of Chile. After our breakfast we loaded up the Land Cruiser and continued on our way this time our first stop was to look at an active volcano smoking away while we were on the remnants of another ancient volcano. Bolivia is the poorest country in South America however it is unbelievably resource rich around this region, there is so many minerals it is hard to imagine why this country is so poor, the main reason that we could understand is that the locals are quite active and destructive protesters and some mining activities have been shut down due to these protests, including a large state owned salt processing factory in favor of the small ones conducted by the locals as mentioned previously - this protesting is based on the fact that the people (outsiders) who're employed in those factories earn 4 times what the indigenous population earn and therefore create even more poverty in the township for the locals. Some of the minerals available; lithium, sulphur, borax, zinc, copper, arsenic, lead, gold, silver. Some of these are now being mined again however not in the recently zoned national park which is attempting to become one of the new 7 wonders of the world. The landscapes here are very different the colours of the mountains vary quite a lot from reds, yellows, whites, blacks, & greens. Our next part of our trip took us to a small lake with flamingoes and other water birds, the flamingoes feed of micro-organisms in the waters of the lakes, this was also our lunch stop, the lake stank really bad and there were a ton of flies as well.
Lunch was delicious and once we finished we all walked around the lake where our 4x4 picked us up to continue to the next lake. The next lake must of had thousands of flamingoes in it, it was huge, not as stinky as the previous lake and really muddy as the flamingoes were sinking slowly if they stood still. (Why does a flamingo stand on one leg? because if he lifted both legs he'd fall on his face!) Really though, Figo, our guide/driver told us at night the flamingoes group in a circle and those on the outside stand on one leg so that in the morning they can use the lifted leg to break the ice that forms around their leg, trapping them in the lake.
The next part of our day took us to the rock that the locals say look like a tree. There must of been a bit too much coca tea being drunk when someone dreamed up that one, its just a big eroded rock surrounded by other eroded rocks. Our last stop for the day is at the Red Lake, there is an algae in the Lake that when the sun and wind sweeps across the lake the algae opens providing the red colouration, in celebration of our last stop Karl did a head stand, unsuccessfully captured by camera which was more arse than ace. The height of where we stayed the night was the highest we had been so far, it was just under 5000m above sea level.
Tour Day 3
We woke up early so that we could arrive back in Uynui at around 6pm it was cold outside about -12 degrees Celsius, our first stop for the day was at the Sun of Tomorrow Geysers, they were fantastic we were warned not to get to close as the steam is about 250 - 300 degrees Celsius. Being a developing country there are pretty much no safety standards however there is a small hospital at a mine about 30mins away which has only had to be used once as an Israeli tourist (apparently Israelis give tour operators the most grief when it comes to safety) got too close slipped in and got 3rd degree burns to both his legs. The first geyser is actually man made using pipes etc and used to study volcanic activities and variations. the rest are natural with vapour escaping from little cracks in the ground almost everywhere we were walking which was really reassuring. our next stop was the hot pools, which after several days without a shower were a welcome reward to a sore car bottom and to re-hydrate our skin, the water was surprisingly clear but a beautiful temperature, which was actually too much for Karl who swears his kiwi blood has anti-freeze in it. Karl was the first out who pranced around for about 10 minutes without a shirt on (even though he has a cold) and helped Jane out of the pool, unfortunately Jane at this point had also succumbed to the same man flu but surprisingly had it worse. After piling into the car we headed to our next destination where we were dropping one of our beloved comrades off for her to continue to Chile, the destination was a lake that was meant to be green but unfortunately the conditions were not right for it to be green for us, this lake was full of copper and arsenic, making for a lovely punch and it was surprising to actually see some local animals similar to llamas called vicuna down close to it. After our passenger drop off we then headed to the boarder of the national park some hours away where we stopped for lunch. After lunch we had only one more stop to overlook a borax mine, which wasn't particularly interesting as all it entailed was a digger and a slow rotation of dump trucks that head to Chile after minimal on site processing, too easy to mine the stuff really. We arrived back in Uyuni absolutely stuffed after just over 1000km, we went to a pub to unwind have a few drinks and eat some dinner then said goodbye to our new friends and headed for bed.
- comments
Alejandra really enjoyed reading about your terrible bus ride, brought about tons of memories of similar experiences.
rob just caught up again with what you have been up to sounds like a once in a life time experiance stay safe rob
Uellan sounds like a very interesting and fun drive. reminds me of the travelling I did before safety measures... like walking the Tasman Glacier... the world surely is an interesting and fascinating place...